Community Action Meeting on Immigration Reform with Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren

August 06, 2009

MEDIA ALERT                                                                               Contacts:  Karen Belote – 408-910-7944

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                         Sergio Gomez, 408-592-3027 (Spanish/English)

Aug 6, 2009                                                                                                       Maria Esther Cabrera, 408-726-9253 (Spanish)  

SAN JOSE, CA                                                                                                 Akemi Flynn, 408-504-8030

                                                                       Pedro Ribeiro, Office of Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, (202) 374-7154                                                                                                                               

** Call for advance or follow up interviews. See stories below 

of how the immigration system is failing local families and community. **

Faith and Immigrant Communities Demand

Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Thousands urge Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren to fix broken immigration system this year

National Campaign pushes for workable solutions to move our country forward

WHO & WHAT:  Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, the top House leader on immigration issues, meets with hundreds of faith and grassroots community leaders from PACT, SIREN, SVAIR, PICO National Network, and the Reform Immigration FOR America Campaign (RI4A).

Ø  Community members will give testimony about their continuing struggles for equality, for keeping their families united, and the desperate need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

Ø  PACT will ask Congress Member Lofgren to urge Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, her Congressional colleagues, and President Obama to pass comprehensive immigration reform this year.

WHEN:    Thursday, August 6^th, 2009, 7:30pm

WHERE:  St. Patrick’s Proto-Cathedral, 389 E. Santa Clara St. San Jose, 95113

The following people who will give testimony highlighting various aspects of the broken immigration system.  

Monserrat is a 13 year old girl born in San Jose, CA to an undocumented immigrant mother.  When Monserrat’s grandfather grew gravely ill and eventually died in Mexico, she and her mother were unable to go and pay their last respects because of her mother’s immigration status.  Monserrat was never able to meet her grandfather.  

 Maria Esther, Monserrat's mother, shares the painful story of being unable to return to Mexico to see her dying father, because she would not have been able to return with her daughter who needs U.S. health care for a serious health condition.

Phalguni and Melody are a brother and sister who came to the U.S. with their father on an H1B visa 7 years ago, fleeing persecution in their home country of India.  When the H1B visa expired, they applied for asylum, and are still in limbo waiting for permanent resident status.  Meanwhile, Phalguni has graduated from a San Jose high school with the qualifications to be accepted into a pre-med program at UC-Riverside, but because of his immigration status he is ineligible for student financial aid, and is unable to attend the university.

Xuan Huong is a refugee from Vietnam.  She waited for 17 years in a refugee camp in the Philippines for permission to come to the United States.  She was finally granted a visa, but it did not include all of her minor children.  She is still fighting so that all of her family can reside together legally in this country.

Tony Alexander, UFCW, will share why comprehensive immigration reform is good for our whole community and country and why African Americans should support it.

Sergio and Chris are small business owners who understand how important immigrants are to the local and national economy.

WHY:  The current immigration system is hurting our families and our economy.

Ø  Legal U.S. residents’ and naturalized citizens’ immediate family members are stuck in a visa backlog nightmare, with approvals being delayed sometimes more than 20 years.

Ø  Children who are U.S. citizens of undocumented immigrant parents live with the constant fear of the destruction of their family if their parents are taken in an ICE raid.

Ø  There is currently no way for undocumented immigrants who have worked hard for years in this country to adjust their status to legal resident, which would allow them to get a driver’s license, car insurance, pay into social security and participate fully in the recovery of the US economy.

Now more than ever, we all need comprehensive immigration reform.

§  With more than 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country, an “enforcement only” policy is unrealistic and would cost over $200 billion in deportation programs. In contrast, a comprehensive policy focused on integration and normalizing the status of undocumented immigrants would generate an estimated $66 billion in additional tax revenue over the next ten years.

§   The recently released Cardozo Report on ICE Enforcement has revealed a pattern of racial profiling against Latinos. The report finds that “90% of the collateral arrest records reviewed where ICE officers did not note any basis for seizing and questioning the individual, were of Latino men and women – though Latinos represented only 66% of target arrests.” 

 Such profiling goes against our nation’s values of equality and due process and creates very real fear of law enforcement officers among many of Silicon Valley’s Latino families. This fear of law enforcement officials makes neighborhoods LESS safe, as people choose not to call SJPD when they are witnesses to or victims of a crime.

§   A recent national poll by the Benenson Strategy Group found that there is widespread support for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, with more than 80% of Democratic, Republican and Independent voters saying they are for it.

Not only do American voters believe it is time for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, so do many of our nation’s leaders.  After a June 25th meeting between the President and top legislative leaders, President Obama is quoted as saying “I think the consensus is that despite our inability to get this passed over the last several years, the American people still want to see a solution in which we are tightening up our borders, or cracking down on employers who are using illegal workers in order to drive down wages, and oftentimes mistreat[ing] those workers. And we need an effective way to recognize and legalize the status of undocumented workers who are here.”  In the Senate, Senator Charles Schumer (D- NY) is in the process of writing Comprehensive Immigration Legislation and is planning to submit it to committee before Labor Day.

PACT is joining with PICO congregations across the country, as well as the Reform Immigration FOR America campaign, in launching a media and grassroots campaign to build broad support in Congress for a just and humane comprehensive immigration reform.  The national campaign includes events across the country, public meetings with Senators and Representatives, and other local and national lobbying efforts - all focused on the goal of enacting reform that will include workable solutions that will move us all forward together.

Event Organized by:

v PACT: People Acting in Community Together is a multi-ethnic, interfaith organization that empowers people to create a more just community.  PACT represents 21 congregations and 50,000 people in Santa Clara County, and is part of the PICO National Network.  www.pactsj.org

v PICO National Network has fifty-two affiliated federations working in 150 cities and towns and seventeen states. More than one million families and one thousand congregations from forty different denominations and faiths participate in PICO. www.piconetwork.org

v Supported by: Silicon Valley Alliance for Immigration Reform, SIREN, CET Immigration services, and Reform Immigration for America